News: ASA Brain Health Day, powered by SharpBrains

I  am very excit­ed to pre-announce a col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging (ASA) to co-pro­duce a Brain Health event, themed “New Tools, New Part­ner­ships”, to take place in Oak­land, CA, on Sep­tem­ber 11th.

Reg­is­tra­tion will be open next week so we will issue the for­mal announce­ment and pro­vide links then ($150 for the whole day, which includes a signed copy of The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness), but here you have the agen­da & speak­ers in case you want to pen­cil in the date.

Con­text: Since 2006, healthy aging pio­neers have been active­ly eval­u­at­ing and imple­ment­ing an expand­ing menu of stim­u­lat­ing brain health pro­grams. The Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging and Sharp­Brains have part­nered to intro­duce aging pro­fes­sion­als to the best prac­tices in a vari­ety of com­mu­ni­ty-based and res­i­den­tial set­tings, dis­cuss emerg­ing trends that will affect your work in years to come, and offer you resources to under­stand and nav­i­gate through the grow­ing array of options. Par­tic­i­pants will receive a com­pli­men­ta­ry and signed copy of the book The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness (May 2009, $24.95).

Learn­ing objec­tives:

- Under­stand the com­ple­men­tary val­ue the four main lifestyle pil­lars for life­long brain health and why “men­tal exer­cise”, beyond sim­ple “men­tal activ­i­ty”, is one of them.
— Iden­ti­fy the best mix of brain health prac­tices and tech­nolo­gies by dis­cussing real world case stud­ies in a vari­ety of set­tings: adult edu­ca­tion, inde­pen­dent liv­ing, assist­ed living.
— Dis­cuss the oppor­tu­ni­ties and chal­lenges of build­ing inno­v­a­tive part­ner­ships between a non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tions and a for-prof­it companies.
— Explore emerg­ing trends in research, pub­lic health, life­long learn­ing, and tech­nol­o­gy, to ensure that health and aging pro­fes­sion­als are well equipped for years to come.

Agen­da:

9:00 – 10:30 am Keynote- The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fitness

This ses­sion will pro­vide an overview of the most recent research, guide­lines and resources to “Use It and Improve It”, sum­ma­riz­ing the main find­ings and top­ics from the book The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness. It will debunk 10 brain fit­ness myths; dis­cuss how the brain works and the 4 pil­lars of brain main­te­nance; explain the dif­fer­ence between men­tal exer­cise and men­tal activ­i­ty and iden­ti­fy research-based ways to exer­cise our brains; and review what 21 brain fit­ness soft­ware pack­ages do – and what they don’t do. Final­ly, the ses­sion will dis­cuss emerg­ing trends to ensure that health and aging pro­fes­sion­als are well equipped for years to come.

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, SharpBrains

11:00 to 12:00 noon Bring­ing Brain Fit­ness to the Com­mu­ni­ty Center

Sci­ence con­tin­ues to high­light the impor­tance of stay­ing active men­tal­ly as well as phys­i­cal­ly; peo­ple of all ages and sit­u­a­tions face the chal­lenge of learn­ing what brain exer­cise is, how it can help them, and how to incor­po­rate it into their busy lives. The Penin­su­la Jew­ish Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­ter (PJCC) has formed a unique part­ner­ship with vibrant­Brains, a pio­neer­ing gym for brain exer­cise, to explore new ways to bring brain fit­ness into the com­mu­ni­ty on top of its exist­ing fit­ness and edu­ca­tion­al activities.

Deb­o­rah Pin­sky, Penin­su­la Jew­ish Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­ter; Lisa Schooner­man, vibrantBrains

1:30 to 2:30 pm Lat­est Tech­nolo­gies and Brain Health: Val­ue and Limitations

Four inno­v­a­tive prac­ti­tion­ers will share their first-hand expe­ri­ence imple­ment­ing com­put­er­ized cog­ni­tive train­ing pro­grams in dif­fer­ent set­tings: adult edu­ca­tion class­es, inde­pen­dent liv­ing, and assist­ed liv­ing. They will dis­cuss the Pros and Cons of tech­nol­o­gy pro­grams pro­vid­ed by Dakim, Posit Sci­ence and Cog­niFit, help­ing the audi­ence explore how tech­nol­o­gy can enhance exist­ing brain health and well­ness pro­grams and how this trend will affect their work in the future.

James Arp, Bel­mont Vil­lage; Kari Olsen, Front Porch; Shel­lie Sul­li­van, Lake­view Vil­lage; Teri Barr, Oak­land Uni­fied School District

2:30 to 3:15 pm Engag­ing the Com­mu­ni­ty to Inte­grate Brain Health Research into Life­long Learning 

OLLI @Berkeley has devel­oped a mem­ber­ship team to inves­ti­gate how to inte­grate neu­ro­science dis­cov­er­ies into their life­long learn­ing cur­ricu­lum and ongo­ing com­mu­ni­ty activ­i­ties. If old­er adults are told that, in addi­tion to exer­cise, nutri­tion, among oth­er things, men­tal stim­u­la­tion is required that is nov­el, chal­leng­ing and varied—how can life­long learn­ing cen­ters and adults them­selves judge what that is and how to inte­grate those under­stand­ings our activ­i­ties and lives?. Susan Hoff­man will share the method­ol­o­gy and insights of work­ing with the com­mu­ni­ty as well as with a wide range of experts and sci­en­tists, and dis­cuss what might be pos­si­ble in a vari­ety of insti­tu­tion­al set­tings such as yours.

Susah Hoff­man, OLLI@Berkeley

3:30 to 4.30 pm San Fran­cis­co Alzheimer’s Edu­ca­tion & Pre­ven­tion Task­force: Get­ting Ready for the Future

The San Fran­cis­co May­or’s office, in part­ner­ship with the Depart­ment of Aging & Adult Ser­vices recent­ly con­vened an expert pan­el and com­mit­tees to cre­ate a strate­gic plan for address­ing the needs of San Fran­cis­cans with mem­o­ry loss and demen­tia through the year 2020. Learn about the process, find­ings and rec­om­men­da­tions on how the city of San Fran­cis­co plans to address edu­ca­tion and pre­ven­tion of demen­tia now and in the future.

Eliz­a­beth Edger­ly, Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion; Bill Haskells, Depart­ment of Aging & Adult Services

4:30 pm What We Have Learned, What is Next

What are some of the pri­or­i­ties and chal­lenges for the next 12 months for the field at large, and for every­one involved? This inter­ac­tive ses­sion will help us sum­ma­rize the key high­lights from the whole day, iden­ti­fy emerg­ing assump­tions, themes, and pri­or­i­ties, and dis­cuss col­lab­o­ra­tive next steps.

Car­ole Ander­son, Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging; Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, SharpBrains 

Some Bios (again, reg­is­tra­tion and all info will be ready by Monday)

Eliz­a­beth Edger­ly, Ph.D., is the Chief Pro­gram Offi­cer for the Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion and nation­al spokesper­son for the Association’s Main­tain Your Brain pro­gram. She over­sees the many pro­grams of the Asso­ci­a­tion for patients, fam­i­lies and health care pro­fes­sion­als. In addi­tion, she staffs the Med­ical Sci­en­tif­ic Advi­so­ry Coun­cil of the Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion — North­ern Cal­i­for­nia. She received her Ph.D. in clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gy at the State Uni­ver­si­ty of New York and spe­cial­ized in geropsy­chol­o­gy and neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy. Dr. Edger­ly joined the Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion after com­plet­ing a fel­low­ship in clin­i­cal geropsy­chol­o­gy at the Palo Alto VA Hospital.

James Arp works as the West Region­al Direc­tor for Activ­i­ty and Mem­o­ry Pro­grams for Bel­mont Vil­lage, where he was involved in a pilot pro­gram using com­put­er­ized cog­ni­tive train­ing. James has also worked as an Admin­is­tra­tor for sev­er­al Inter­me­di­ate Care Facil­i­ties for the Devel­op­men­tal­ly Dis­abled and in Guardian­ship, and has a Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence Degree in Psy­chol­o­gy and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Disorders.

Kari Olson, Chief Infor­ma­tion Offi­cer of Front Porch, leads all tech­nol­o­gy ini­tia­tives for Front Porch and its part­ners. Kari is also the Pres­i­dent of the Front Porch Cen­ter for Tech­nol­o­gy Inno­va­tion and Well­be­ing whose mis­sion is to explore inno­v­a­tive uses of tech­nol­o­gy to empow­er indi­vid­u­als to live well, espe­cial­ly in their lat­er years. Kari is active­ly involved in the Cen­ter for Aging Ser­vices Tech­nolo­gies where she serves as a com­mis­sion­er, steer­ing com­mit­tee mem­ber and task group chair for Boomer Tech­nol­o­gy Needs Research and co-chair of the Provider Needs Research Work­group. Kari speaks reg­u­lar­ly around the coun­try on tech­nol­o­gy for aging ser­vices. Kari holds a BA in eco­nom­ics from Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Los Ange­les and has com­plet­ed grad­u­ate course work in edu­ca­tion at Cal­i­for­nia State Uni­ver­si­ty, Los Angeles.

Lisa Schooner­man is a co-founder at vibrant­Brains. Lisa held a vari­ety of tech­ni­cal and edi­to­r­i­al posi­tions with the Thom­son Cor­po­ra­tion in the Legal Pub­lish­ing divi­sion (now Thom­son­Reuters), begin­ning in Rochester, NY and then com­ing to San Fran­cis­co to work for what was then Ban­croft Whit­ney. Lisa’s work for Thom­son includ­ed a 3‑year assign­ment in the UK, where she was Edi­to­r­i­al Direc­tor of the group pro­vid­ing con­tent for West­law UK, the first inter­na­tion­al appli­ca­tion of the West­law database.

Susan E. Hoff­man is the direc­tor of the Osh­er Life­long Learn­ing Insti­tute with­in the Vice Provost’s Office for Teach­ing and Learn­ing at UC Berke­ley. For the past fif­teen years she has worked at UC and CSU cam­pus­es launch­ing new inter­dis­ci­pli­nary and inter­na­tion­al pro­grams. Before then, she served as the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Cal­i­for­nia Con­fed­er­a­tion of the Arts, rep­re­sent­ing Cal­i­for­nia artists, art edu­ca­tors and arts orga­ni­za­tions in Sacra­men­to and Wash­ing­ton for a decade. Her cre­ative work includes being a writer and film­mak­er. Her fac­ul­ty appoint­ments have been in cre­ative writ­ing, the­atre and polit­i­cal philosophy.

Teri Barr admin­is­ters the brain fit­ness class­es for old­er adults at Oak­land Uni­fied School Dis­trict. She has a BFA from the Art Insti­tute of Chica­go and a MSPE from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois. In Illi­nois, she designed and imple­ment­ed well­ness class­es in Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege, Uni­ver­si­ty and Hos­pi­tal set­tings. Since mov­ing to Cal­i­for­nia, she has worked for OACE (Oak­land Adult and Career Edu­ca­tion) in the Old­er Adult Pro­gram. She start­ed research for brain health class­es in 2006 and began the pro­gram at OACE in 2007.